Advertising guru dies

Advertising legend Mr David Ogilvy died yesterday aged 88, his company Ogilvy & Mather has said.

Mr Ogilvy was founder of one of the world's biggest agencies and a guru of the advertising world.

Born in West Horsley, Surrey, he made his name and his fortune in the United States and died at his final home in Torfou, near Nantes, France.

He wrote some of the most famous ads of his day and passed on his knowledge in his book Confessions Of An Advertising Man, one of the best-sellers on the subject.

He always insisted that the aim of good advertising was not to be amusing or memorable but to sell more of the product.

"The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife," was one of his famous pieces of advice.

"Never run an advertisement you would not want your family to see," was another.

A slow starter, he was ejected from Oxford University and had a varied career which included spells in a Parisian hotel kitchen, farming with the Amish and working for research firm Gallup.

Before he emigrated, he was a door-to-door salesman for Aga cookers in Scotland, selling so many that he was asked to write the sales guide.

Mr Ogilvy worked with British Security Co-ordination during the second World War and was second secretary of the British Embassy in Washington.

He founded New Yorkbased agency Ogilvy, Benson & Mather in 1948, and went on to win accounts from Lever Brothers, General Foods, American Express, Shell and Sears.

The company merged with its London parent Mather and Crowther in 1965, and went public a year later.

He retired as full-time chairman in 1973.

In 1989, the Ogilvy Group was sold to British holding company WPP for $864 million, or about £540 million, and Mr Ogilvy became its chairman until 1992 when he was made President Emeritus.

He was made a CBE in 1967 and an officer of France's Order of Arts and Letters in 1990.

He was also a trustee on the executive council of the World Wildlife Fund.